From YouTube.com user: awkwardpictures

Whatever you do, don’t watch the Awkward Pictures Welcome Video before you enter the genre-bouncing, irreverent library of Awkward Pictures. You might, at first, get the wrong impression.

If you must begin with the Welcome Video, be in on the joke. Just as you start to gaze past the well-honed mud-toned home video stammer of writers/directors Payman and Sean, Payman yawns. Ostentatiously.

A few increasingly lifeless seconds later the video literally takes a sharp upturn and it closes with a lovely view of the eggshell ceiling, from the perspective of a mischievous tripod.

But while the Welcome Video goes down in the carefully crafted ruins of amateur video recording, the other Awkward Pictures films are very clearly productions of two clever young men, learned scholars of the slow, building narrative and the satisfying punchline.

On the other hand, it isn’t so easy to pigeonhole Awkward Pictures; aside from a life-sized banana suit that appears in at least two of their films, the sketches can be drastically different. Three-minute social satire may not be so uncommon these days, but Awkward Pictures sometimes seems to be producing social satire of social satire.

And just what is their position, anyway? Is “Online Piracy Public Service Announcement” mocking online piracy law enforcement, those who mock online piracy law enforcement, or people who appear in public service announcements?

In “Payman 'n Me,” “pilot episode in a series that the team apparently cancelled without producing additional episodes, is about roommates who found each other via Craigslist. I was unclear: were they making fun of mundane roommate squabbles in general, a la “you drank all the milk”? Or is it an inside joke, making fun of one specific roommate from someone's past? Does anyone else think it’s creepy when Payman hoists his roommate up by the armpits and demands to know, while staring into the roommate’s eyes, when was his last gig?

Awkward Pictures is smart, and they know what they’re doing. They also seem to have a lot of resources and talented associates.

One of the most absurd of the Awkward Pictures films and one of the few that uses drawings, “Delicious Tropical Party” (see top video) was created solely from Microsoft Paint and features two self-righteous middle aged men (one with a British accent, for some reason) who engage in an argument about who’s going to Hell. Conveniently, the bus they’re riding slams into a tree and erupts into a surprisingly large – but actually gorgeous (pause at 2:02) – burst of flames, and the two men split up, one to Heaven, one to Hell (which, apparently, is accessible by down-escalator).

Heaven, it turns out, is a lot like a parochial school dance, complete with out-of-date hip hop and bad clothes; Hell is a bit too warm but not unbearable, with beer, hot celebrities, Sea Biscuit, and Hawaiian shirts. It’s a classic morality tale but much more entertaining and with Microsoft Paint portrayals of famous people.

Like many of their other films, which are all worth checking out, “Delicious Tropical Party” teaches faithful YouTube viewers that Hell just might be awesome after all.

Labels: Abby Gross, Awkward Pictures, awkwardpictures, comedy, heaven, hell, satire